438 The Fuel of the Sun. [Oclober, 



On examining these calculations, I have discovered the 

 very curious error above referred to. As this is a matter of 

 figures that cannot be abridged, I must refer the reader to 

 the original calculations. I will here merely state that the 

 result of Wollaston's method of calculating the solar gravi- 

 tation atmosphere and that of Jupiter and the moon is the 

 monstrous conclusion that, in ascending from the surface of 

 the given orb, we always have the same limited amount of 

 atmospheric matter above as that with which we started, 

 although we are continually leaving a portion of it below. 



Wollaston's mistake is based on the assumption that, 

 under the circumstances supposed, the atmospheric pressure 

 and density, at any given distance from the centre of the 

 given orb, will vary inversely with the square of the distance. 

 As the area of the base upon which such pressure is exerted 

 varies directly with the square of the distance, the total atmo- 

 sphere above every imaginable starting-distance would thus 

 be ever the same. That this assumption, so utterly at variance 

 with the known laws of atmospheric distribution, should have 

 remained unchallenged for half a century, and that the con- 

 clusions based upon it should be accepted by the whole scien- 

 tific world, and repeated in all our standard treatises, is, I 

 think, one of the most remarkable curiosities presented by 

 the history of science. If it were merely a little cobweb in 

 some obscure corner of philosophy, there would be nothing 

 surprising in its escape from the besom of scientific criticism, 

 but this is so far from being the case that it has hung, since 

 1822, like a dark veil obscuring another, a wider and most 

 interesting view of the universe which the idea of an 

 universal atmosphere opens out. But I must now proceed 

 to the next stage of the argument. 



Starting from the conclusion reached in the previous 

 chapters, that the atmosphere of our earth is but a portion 

 of an universal elastic medium which it has attached to 

 itself by its gravitation, and that all the other orbs of space 

 must, in like manner, have obtained their proportion, I take 

 the earth's mass, and its known quantity of atmospheric 

 envelope as units, and calculating, by the simple rule I have 

 laid down in opposition to Wollaston's, I find that the 

 total weight of the sun's atmosphere should be at least 

 117,681,623 times that of the earth's, and the pressure at 

 its base equal, at least, to 15,233 atmospheres. What must 

 be the results of such an atmospheric accumulation ? 



The experiment of compressing air in the condensing 

 syringe, and thereby lighting a piece of German tinder, is 

 familiar to all who have studied even the rudiments of 



